The PuppetMaster (7 page)

Varanasi, Benares, the holiest of India’s cities. A thousand writers have struggled to lay descriptions of its antiquity upon their pages. Over the centuries a few have met with limited success. They have written, “It is a city so ancient that many believe it to be the oldest still in existence.” But what does that say? Only that it is old. Yes, it is old, and puzzling and dark, and the deeper one ventures into its labyrinthine paths, the darker it becomes. Its original name was Kashi, The City of Light, but that luminous title referred to its spiritual side--Buddha spoke in its gardens. It certainly didn’t refer to the dank gullies that twisted like a nest of snakes along its eastern half.

The central avenues are wide enough for pedestrians and the mass of carts and vehicles, but as one enters the lanes to the east there is an immediate and sudden transformation. The walls close in, the paths narrow like a constricting vascular system, squeezing into tinier and tinier spaces, the air becomes pungent with dung, cooking spices, and raw human filth. Strains of Hindustani music blare from a dozen ill-tuned radios above walls that block the light of day. Voices drift from windows where no faces ever appear. People push past each other with downcast eyes and just when the shadows grow darkest and the walls pinch to nauseating tightness, it parts. And there, like an immense, brilliant vein, the Mother Ganges spreads across to a distant and sandy shore. She sweeps by slowly, while all that confined life in the lanes spills onto her banks with visible relief.

Vaulted temples, marbled mosques, and wooden stalls have risen and crumbled on those banks from before recorded time. Layer upon layer, mortar, brick, and clay have risen and fallen to the foundations below. And no person walking there can take a step without feeling that.

The river is the center of the city set incongruously to the side, a magnificent circus of ancient ritual. Loin-clothed disciples stand in murky water chanting, “Release us from the wheel of existence.” Sadhus meditate, naked to the mid-day sun. Beggars hobble with out-stretched palms. Snakes-charmers play reedy melodies. Women slap-wash cloth and men pray while the buildings rise and fall again. All of India comes to the river, as they have for six thousand years. It is a city teeming with life. And it is a city of death. People come to there to die.

I cranked Ugly Bike’s wheel sharply to the right and snapped on the brakes. A bull, large enough to regard with some caution, was meandering—bulls meander in Varanasi—up the gully. I swore out loud, knowing this podgy obstruction was going to likely delay my arrival at Devi’s. Jumping off, I wedged myself into a rank niche in the wall and expelled the air from my lungs. The bull clopped past with a bovine grunt, lifted its tail, defecated, and then wandered casually up the walkway.

I stepped cautiously down the slimy lane to Master’s house. His, like mine, had a rear courtyard bordered by a tall, glass-encrusted wall and a thick-planked gate in the center. From the lane it was impossible to peer into the rear yard. For three years I had parked Ugly Bike just inside the gate and entered through the kitchen for afternoon lessons. An hour and a half each weekday, Master and I would sip tea, eat pakoras, and discuss conjugations, compounds, and poetic significance. I would sit cross-legged on a thin mat while he reclined in a cushioned rocker. Mirabai, his wife of fifty-six years would bustle in to serve or remove cups in decorous silence. On rare occasions I’d encounter their daughter, Sukshmi, as she moved quietly about the house. Usually she would draw her sari demurely across her face while I stammered a shy namaste. During recent months, I hadn’t seen her at all as she’d been at the university in Mumbai, but gupchup had it she was now back home between semesters

And it was Sukshmi that I ran into, literally, as I burst through the kitchen door in my attempt to be seated punctually in the parlor. I sent Ugly Bike careening rider-less across the courtyard to fall where she would, ascended the steps in a single leap, and then caught my toe inelegantly on the threshold. I stumbled directly into Sukshmi’s backside, which at that moment was pushed out like an offering from the fruit vendor as she searched for some object in a lower cabinet.

“Oh shit.” Second mistake, I never swore in Masterji’s presence, much less in the presence of his beautiful daughter. “I…I…I’m sorry. I didn’t. . .” My tongue locked like a rusted gear. Three golf balls materialized in my mouth. Then I heard the most delightful sound of the week, her laugh. It gave me just enough courage to find my voice again.

“I didn’t see you. Really, I’m so sorry.”

She turned, and with a self-assured smile, studied the crimson in my cheeks. “Your apology is accepted, Vidyarthi, unnecessary, but accepted.” I was looking into the most stunning eyes in the city, curved pools of black and emerald, and right then they were filled to the lids with amusement.

Devi’s raspy voice called from the salon, “You are late, Bhim. Forty-three seconds so.”

I was ready to offer my second apology of the morning when Sukshmi called out, “Oh no Papa, he has been standing on the porch telling me what a wonderful teacher you have been to him.”

This was answered with a skeptical snort. “Yes? And how long has he been in the house?” I pictured him consulting his watch, calculating.

“I have detained him for four minutes at least, asking him how he can do so much Sanskrit with you and still have time to write to his own father.” Then she looked at me with eyelashes any western woman would kill for, or at least pay large sums of money to acquire. And winked.

“So, is Bhim going to join us today, or is he going to chat with my defiant daughter all morning?” I knew then that some thorny issue had come between them just before my arrival.

Leaving Sukshmi smiling in the kitchen, I stepped into the salon.

Eleven

“I’m ready to work until my fingers fall off or my eyes give out, Masterji.”

“Good, because that is precisely how much we are going to do, young man. You remember C.G., yes?”

I folded my hands together, bent and touched the tiles somewhere within an acceptable distance of C.G.’s toes. Full contact wasn’t necessary according to custom and definitely out of the question as far as I was concerned. Those were the ugliest appendages east of Delhi. It was, however, the customary gesture of respect for the old professor and Master’s closest friend since childhood. He was also Devi’s perpetual verbal sparring partner. To put it mildly, the boys liked to bicker.

I straightened up, bowed to the bald, brilliant little man and said, “It is a pleasure to see you again, Professor. I pray you have been well.” Rumor had it that a weak heart and kidney stones were paining him considerably.

“Ah, Bhim, my young friend, thank you for asking. What I lack in health these days, I have in happiness. Maladies are close acquaintances of a man of my years, but with my weekly plunges in the river, I am ready to leave the great wheel whenever it is ready to release me. Devi tells me the two of you had a good visit to our secret place yesterday. Please, sit, sit. Tell us your thoughts and show us the photographs you took.” He patted a large rocker next to him. That was a surprise. The mat on the floor was my customary spot. With a small flush of pride, I assumed it was because I was now the technical expert--having the laptop and photographs in my possession. I’d been promoted.

Plugging the computer in, I pressed the start button and the drive began to boot. Master made no effort to hide his contempt for our use of a contraption newer than the plow. I realized that viewing the screen was going to present a small challenge. Being backlit, it needed to be seen at close proximity and at the proper angle. With Devi and C.G. sitting to the sides it wouldn’t work. I hopped up, and without asking, retrieved the ornate tea table and set the computer on it.

“Punditjis,” I said. “I think you will be able to see more clearly if you move behind me.”

In a clear attempt to discredit the evil gadgetry, Masterji snorted as he raised himself. “This machine will not let us see from the side?”

“Of course not, Devi,” C.G. scolded. “You would understand that if you ever graced us with your presence at the university. I use a Sharp active matrix projector and my Acer 3000 for all my lectures now. Students receive their assignments and grades by email. This is the twenty-first century we live in.” I nearly bent again to touch C.G.’s toes again. Score one for the professor.

Devi, not to be bested, fired off his own shot. “That may be, Mr. C.G. Chandragupta, but I wager as soon as we start reading the script we will need an old fashioned pencil and note pad.”

The boys were getting crotchety, so I plugged a one gigabyte flash drive into the USB slot, my personal filing system—neat folders on a memory stick—and clicked open to the first thumbnail. “This,” I announced, “is from the wall on the right as you enter.” Both men moved to stand behind me. That was unusual. Teachers don’t stand while vidyarthis sit.

I blew a sigh of relief; the image was clear. In the upper left there was a small star from the reflection of the flash on wall, but it obscured two letters at most. The rest was quite readable, making me proud that I had captured it so well for our team.

Of the three of us, Chandragupta was the most learned in the ancient Vedic hymns. Like medical specialists, linguists branched into areas of preference. The professor had spent a good portion of his life studying the songs of the Rig Veda, some from as far back as 5000 BC. He was also an expert on the religious treatises of the Upanishads. He would be our quarterback.

Master had devoted himself to the dramas and poetry of the later periods, the area I also loved, though he could more than hold his own in the Vedic. He would be our tailback.

As the rookie I was hoping I wouldn’t have to warm the bench too much.

C.G., flaunting his technical expertise, asked, “Is this picture made with Adobe Photoshop, Bhim?”

“No, Punditji, It’s JPEG Viewer, very basic program that comes with the computer.”
Behind me Master grumped. “You two will need to go back to the cave and take some better pictures. The script is too small for anyone to read.”

I smiled at C.G., who was leaning over my right shoulder. He grinned back. Clicking on the zoom button I expanded the image two hundred percent. There was a muffled gasp from Devi. Casually, I asked, “How is that? Better?”

“Hmmph, I suppose so. You see, C.G.. I was correct. It begins on this side with the salutation and benediction, and moves east to west around the walls.”

“Of course you are correct, Devi. You are always correct.” Master let that one go.

C.G. went to reading the first few lines while I, wanting to make Masterji feel better and because I did actually need them, asked, “Master? Is there a pencil and paper close by?” As soon as he returned, our attention went to the screen.

We spent the entire morning working on the first photograph alone, and four lines into it we knew it was older than we had thought. A single reference, a benediction to the Ashvini Twins, the demigods of healing, verified it. From that reference we knew it was at least from the thirteenth century BC or older.

We settled into our individual tasks, I laboring the most, as my responsibilities, though less skilled, were more demanding. My task was to create three entries for each line of text. While Devi and C.G. bickered over word meanings and grammatical nuances, I rendered the older Brahmi script into the newer Devanagari. Then as quickly as I could, wrote the transliterations. That took the most time. Each syllable had to be depicted with a symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Finally, I scribbled the English translation that the pundits did so casually in their heads. It was like creating two sets of shorthand and one of long, and by noon my vow to work until my fingers fell off was becoming a reality. For the first time in months I was happy to see Master glance at his Timex.

Three minutes later—her watch was on time-- Mirabai entered with bowls of fried dough nestled in yogurt and lentils, tamarind, and mint chutney. This was accompanied by pistachio lassis and slices of baked nan. With a click, I saved the images to the flash drive and snap closed the laptop.

Devi, through a mouthful of lentils, asked, “So C.G., it is clearly one of the early branches of the Ayur, would you not agree?”

Draining his lassi with a slurp, C.G. wagged his head “We have only gotten to the benediction, but as strange as it feels, I must agree with you. It will be clearer tomorrow when we get into the main text, but it is undoubtedly medical, and I would agree that it is indeed much older than we thought.” He turned and surprised me by asking, “Bhimaji, you are a man of the world, are there tests that will prove the age of the rock or the stain?”

I understood less than a third of the functions on my camera, so I wouldn’t exactly call myself a techy. How carbon tests worked, or iridium, or whatever chemists used to determine the age of a sample of plant dye was a mystery. “I’m really not sure, Punditji. I mean, I would think so. I guess I could research it.”

“Yes, yes, the age of the rock and the dye, might be helpful . . .” He paused and then said what we already knew, “but not as much as the writing style. That will tell us. We just need time with it.” He paused and frowned. “I suppose a talk with Mr. Muktendra, the owner of the property, would be wise. To discuss security, you know. Then, at some point we can bring experts in with scientific equipment to verify the age.” I was beginning to see that, as adept as they were in language, the pundits had never managed or secured anything like this. That made three of us.